


Thantophobia

by Amaranthine312



Series: Amaranthine [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: 1940s, F/M, Immortality
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-14
Updated: 2019-02-20
Packaged: 2019-10-10 01:19:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,945
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17416235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amaranthine312/pseuds/Amaranthine312
Summary: She spent decades alone, awaiting death but now that she has someone by her side she begins to fear the one thing she embraced her whole life.





	1. prologue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this story is going through a complete rewrite and all chapters are being pre-written so please keep in mind anything you are currently reading is not the intended story and will most definitely change

She sat down in an attempt to process. Time seemed to be going slower than ever, the ticks of her clock were no longer a sound she took comfort in.

She wanted to cry, to scream. But she couldn't, she was frozen, sitting there. She felt weak, she felt robbed of future experiences and she couldn't do anything about it.

She could leave but when things like this happened she never went far. She wanted to stay close for some reason. She finally felt at home and she wasn't going to give it up. She was going to grieve, deal with whatever was thrown at her.

She would no longer run or lose sleep. No matter how much she loved him, no matter how much he mattered to her, she wasn't going to let his death affect her this way. She was tired of running. It never solved anything, all it did was hinder her grieving process.

Each time she ran, she took all but one stage of grief with her. Acceptance.

This time though, she'd leave and accept that he wouldn't come back. She'd leave but she would never let him leave her thoughts. She'd leave knowing he would be happy that she got over him.

She'd leave with a jacket he had left there months ago, one that she would never be able to give back to him.


	2. 001

Anne stared at her reflection wondering what was wrong with her. She should have died so many times but she hadn't.

She should've died from complications during childbirth, all twelve times.

She should have died after the funeral of her youngest when she had tried to end her own life.

No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't seem to die. The fact that she wasn't aging didn't make her feel any better.

She couldn't go outside in fear of someone finding out she hadn't gotten any older and doing god knows what to her. She had to sit in her home, day after day watching everyone around her age whilst she stayed the same.

It only started to hurt when she looked much younger than all her living children. That's when it all became real to her, the fact that she couldn't age or die.

The fact that she would have to outlive everyone she knew.

She had no choice but to stay strong and stop at her countless attempts at death. It's not like she'd succeed, and so as the years passed, there were more and more funerals to attend. More and more questions as to who she was, more and more theories as to what she was.

All Anne knew was that she felt cursed.

That feeling held up until one night in Brooklyn that she had spent in a dodgy bar, but it wasn't long before it came back and came back worse than ever.


	3. 002

Her feet ached and she felt miserable. She had made a mental note to not cover anyone's shifts anymore. Especially when all she wanted to do was go home and be alone, once she had closed up the diner her longing to go home had gone away.

Now, she sat in a bar, in her work uniform drinking something she absolutely hated next to people drunk off their asses that kept trying to talk to her. For some reason, she stayed right where she was, ordering the same disgusting drinks and getting nothing out of it in return.

"Evan, what the fuck are you giving me?" She asked the bartender. Actually, he was more than that. He was her friend, he had been her friend for a long time, he too couldn't age.

"All the virgin drinks I know how to make," As soon as he said that, Anne's arm reached across the counter and playfully hit him. "Getting drunk isn't going to make your bad day any better."

"All this is coming from the guy who was drunk every day for god knows how many years." Anne knew it was a low blow but he had said much worse to her, even if he got offended, he'd be fine.

He nodded and walked away from her, taking the glass she had, leaving her emptyhanded. Anne sighed and turned in the barstool, scanning the bar on what she could do or who she could annoy.

The bar was full of the usual drunks. Anne knew them all by name. There were a couple of people out on dates, Evan would always make sure there was never anything slipped into anyone's drink. Nobody stood out to her and so she paid for the drinks and left.

As she walked the streets she kept her arms crossed and her hand in a fist with her keys between her fingers, forming a make-shift weapon, it wasn't safe for her to be walking alone but she didn't have a car and had a hard time trusting any cab driver this time of night.

She was cautious and walked fast, looking behind her frequently. She was scared, all she wanted to do was go home.

Two blocks. That's all she had left until she was met with her apartment building.

She was only two blocks away, her shoulders relaxed a bit until she heard grunting and a something crashing into a metal trash can coming from an alleyway.

Someone was either getting their ass beat or fucked, she didn't want to witness either of them.

As she walked past, curiosity got the better of her and she looked. Someone was getting beat up, from his height, Anne thought he was a child at first and so she decided to step in.

"Hey!" She said, gripping her keys tighter, making sure they were still secure in between her fingers.

She was ignored. Her heart beat uncomfortably fast, her hands shook and her body felt hot. She was basically digging her own grave.

"Stop!" She yelled out, finally, she got their attention.

The larger man turned to her, he had stepped out and given her a visual of the victim. He wasn't a child, he was just short.

"Fuck off."

"Excuse me?"

"You heard me, lady, fuck off!"

"No, pick on someone closer to your own fuckin' size, asshole!" She spat back at him. Everything about her seemed brave and ready to fight on the outside but on the inside, she kept thinking of all the worst case scenarios.

"Like you?"

"Sure, why the fuck not? Anyone but him!" She was bluffing, as soon as he made a run for it she would too.

"Hey!" He finally spoke up. "Miss, just, go home, I can handle myself."

Anne breathed in, she would get the shit beat out of her tonight but she didn't care. "Fuck that, I'm staying here 'till this asshole either beats my ass or leaves."

The larger man laughed at her, "Listen, honey, I'm not-"

"Don't fucking call me honey, either beat my ass or leave, hell, do both just leave him alone."

He laughed and walked away, shoving Anne in the process.

"Asshole!" She yelled out at him as she flipped him off. "You alright?" She turned to the man who was still in the back of the alley with a shocked expression on his face, cautiously approaching him.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Are you okay though?"

"He barely even touched me, asshole woulda gotten the whoopin' of his life if he did anything else though." She joked, he smiled at her.

It was hard to see her clearly in the dark light of the alley but from what he could see, she was beautiful.

"So, what's your name? Mines Anne."

"Steve."

"What'd you do to get your ass beat, Steve?"

He sighed and looked off in the distance, trying to remember. "I think he just picked on me because of how I look and I might have said somethin' to him and set him off."

Anne nodded, he looked horrible. He had taken so many hits and he had a busted lip maybe a concussion depending on how hard he was thrown against the trash can.

"How far you live from here?"

"Two blocks, why?"

"Want me to walk you home?"

"No, Steve, thank you but I can- I can walk home myself."

He nodded and said goodbye before leaving the alley.

Anne should have gone straight home after she left the bar. If she could see into the future she would have minded her business and not stepped in, but she couldn't and so by standing up for him, she set herself up for a life full of loss and hurt.


	4. 003

Anne hadn't seen Steve at all after the altercation. Not even once and that was fine, they were complete strangers that felt completely indifferent about each other.

She hadn't even thought about what happened after that night because it didn't matter, she didn't know him and he didn't know her.

She still went to work every day and worked overtime for little to no pay to wait for her friend's shift to be over. She worked until her feet ached and then some for no real reason other than she wanted to. If she was working she didn't have time to think about things that haunted her late at night.

She had just clocked out and sat on one of the barstools of the diner and kept to herself with a small cup slightly full of cheap liquor one of her co-workers had snuck in, she hoped no one would notice.

"Where'd you get that? You know damn well this diner doesn't have a liquor license." Someone whispered to her as they sat down.

It was Evan.

"You're one to judge, the fuck are you doing here?" She whispered back, sliding the cup to him. For someone who seemed to be judging her, he accepted the drink quickly.

"To see Gwen and self-destructive behavior is more of my thing, I just wouldn't expect it from you." He remarked.

She nodded in agreement and took the cup back from him, thinking of something to say. He was right, self-destructive behavior wasn't something she was ever inclined to do, she didn't even know why she was engaging in it now.

Although, she wouldn't call this self-destructive at all because it wasn't. This was one drink after a long day at work, there was nothing wrong with what she was doing.

"For someone who has a lot of experience in that area, you can't recognize self-destructive behavior for shit," Anne pushed the drink away from her slightly and spoke again, "I just wanna drink once after a shitty day. I'm not you, it's not gonna become my life."

"You're a piece of shit, Annie, a real piece of shit."

"Ah, it's true." She joked with a mocking smirk on her face.

He laughed, "So, what you been up to?"

Anne shrugged, her and Evan hadn't talked in quite a while except for when she'd visit the bar he worked at but even then, the only words they exchanged had been for her order.

"Same stuff, working till my feet hurt, going home, repeating it-" She had stopped for a moment, remembering her encounter with Steve, "Okay, wait, you aren't gonna believe this."

"I'm not gonna believe what?"

"Okay, so, remember that night when I came into the bar and-"

"And I only served you virgin drinks?"

"Yeah, asshole!" Anne laughed, it wasn't like Evan to trick her like that but she was glad he did.

He smiled and reached over to get the glass of liquor out of Anne's grasp, "Okay what happened the night you came to the bar?"

"Oh, right! So, I was walking home and I heard some grunting in an alley and in my head, I was just thinking 'either someone is getting their ass beat or somebody is having a fun night in a dark alley'. It was the first one, by the way."

"Damn, I was hoping for the second one!" The pair laughed at Evan's comment, after the laughter had subsided he motioned for her to continue.

"Okay, so once I hear that I'm just gonna mind my own business but since I'm a nosy shit, I looked. When I looked I thought someone was beating up a kid so I was like 'Hey!' but I got ignored so then I called him a jackass or something and he turned around and I saw that he wasn't beating up a kid."

"Just a short guy?"

"Just a short guy."

"So, lemme get this straight, he was the damsel in distress?" Evan said with a smile on his face, bigger than Anne had ever seen.

Anne cocked her head back and narrowed her eyes, "Maybe so." She couldn't complete her statement without laughing.

She missed having conversations like this with Evan. It had been years since they got along this well, any other time they'd be screaming at each other, delivering low blow after low blow but this was peaceful in a way. Maybe it was the liquor or some kind of miracle but they were getting along.

Just as she burst out laughing, Gwen came out of the kitchen, Evan took it as a signal to get up. He smiled goodbye to Anne and left with exactly with who he had intended to.

And so Anne sat alone now with an empty glass, thanks to Evan and no intention of going home.

Every so often one of her co-workers would come by and talk to her but they always left after a while. Eventually, Anne realized she was just going to be bored all night if she stayed, so she took her things and left.

She walked down the street late at night, once again with her keys between her fingers as a makeshift weapon. She was calmer this time though. She didn't know if it was the alcohol or something else but tonight felt peaceful.

The streets weren't as crowded, a couple of people passed Anne every block or so, they looked about as tired as she did.

It wasn't long before she reached her apartment, she was finally home.

She took a key and unlocked the door, stepping in with a relieved sigh. Her shoulders immediately relaxed and slouched. She dropped her keys on the table beside her couch and kicked off her shoes.

She walked to her room, took her nightgown from the night before off of her bed and put it on. She turned off the kitchen light that she had left on while she was out and went to sleep.

She had only slept for about four hours, due to her coming home late. It wasn't long before the dim early morning light shone through her blinds and a knock at her door awoke her.

"Fuck." She groaned as she got up.

She went to her door and looked through the peephole. It was Gwen. She opened it and crossed her arms over her chest.

"What?" She asked as she let Gwen in.

Gwen couldn't stop smiling as she walked in, Anne closed the door and once again crossed her arms, waiting for her friend to speak.

"I'm getting married!" She squealed as her smile got bigger.

"Oh my god!" Anne screamed in excitement as she hugged Gwen as hard as she could, she let go and spoke again, "When did this happen?"

"Last night." She was calmer but she still had an enormous smile on her face.

"Oh, so that's why he wasn't at my throat last night."

"Shut up."

"So, have you told your parents?" Anne asked as she sat Gwen down on her couch.

"Not yet, we're going to see them this weekend and tell them then."

"How do you think they'll react?"

"I dunno but I'm just so- so happy, things were so rough but I feel like this is a chance to start over."

Anne looked at her confused as she analyzed her words.

"Gwen, honey, do you think he proposed to fix things?"

"I don't think so, maybe it's just convenient timing." Her smile began to falter.

"Look, I'm not trying to ruin your fun but maybe think this through. You can't marry him if he just proposed to fix things, because the next step is kids to fix things. Are you sure you want that?"

"No." She whispered.

Anne wrapped an arm around her and pulled her close to comfort her, she didn't want to ruin her mood but she didn't want her best friend to be hurt. Not like this.

"You eaten yet?" She asked as she faced Gwen.

"No."

"Want me to make you something?"

She only hummed in response, Anne got up and signaled for Gwen to sit at her small kitchen table.

"So, what are you gonna do now?"

"I don't know."

"Well, you can't be in your head all day. We should go out and do something."

"Would Evan really do that?"

"What?" Anne asked as she turned away from the stove.

"Would Evan really just marry me to fix things? Would he play with me like that?"

"I don't know, it's totally possible but I could be completely wrong. I'm just telling you to be careful. I don't want you getting hurt."

"What if you're right? What do I do then?"

"Don't marry him, leave him, or just do what you feel right." She said as she began to put some ingredients away.

Gwen just looked down and looked at her nails as she was deep in thought.

"Eat your fuckin' eggs, we're going out," Anne said as Gwen looked up at her and smiled


End file.
